Keep classical music on the Dallas airwaves

From triumphant marches as we make our morning commute to sonatas that ease the isolation of quarantine, generations of Dallasites have benefited from the chance to tune into WRR-FM (101.1), our metropolis’s classical music station. WRR’s highly effective sign reaches 210,000 listeners per week, reaching far and large to offer residents throughout the town and North Texas entry to arts and tradition.

Our group, the Associates of WRR, has labored for almost 4 a long time to assist Texas’ first radio station, to safe WRR’s future and to make sure the classical arts remained on the air. Over the past yr, we’ve sponsored greater than $100,000 price of commercial-free classical music, supported WRR’s COVID-19 restoration and marked WRR’s centennial with a celebration at Dallas Heritage Village.

Now we have additionally spent the previous 12 months assembly with Metropolis Council members and employees to debate WRR’s future underneath the seek for a third-party supervisor. Now we have at all times been grateful that the 2 bidders had been of the very best high quality. You couldn’t ask for increased caliber organizations than the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and KERA.

Sadly, the method itself left us deeply involved because it strongly paralleled Houston’s path to dropping KHUA-FM (91.7), its classical station. Our issues grew stronger in response to the town’s procurement language {that a} new operator may change the format from classical to no matter generated the wanted income.

Our alarm for WRR’s future is now absolutely shaped as we study from the town that along with contemplating KERA as the brand new supervisor of WRR, the Metropolis Council may even think about promoting the station outright.

The lack of the station can be a disaster not just for the town’s arts mission, however for its fairness and inclusion objectives. No different city-owned arts asset reaches as many individuals with classical arts. No different arts asset gives WRR’s stage of visibility to up-and-coming arts organizations working to thrive as the humanities emerge from the pandemic.

In current days, we have now met with a number of KERA employees, together with KERA president and CEO Nico Leone and KERA’s chief content material and variety officer, Sylvia Komatsu. We’re grateful that they see what we see within the energy of WRR as a classical music station. They acknowledge WRR as a vibrant pillar of the humanities neighborhood, and we couldn’t agree extra.

The Associates of WRR asks you, Dallas Morning Information members, to affix us in supporting KERA as they make a future potential for WRR. We ask council members to affix us too, in supporting WRR by voting in favor of administration by KERA. The choice is silence the place there was lovely music and a loss for the humanities neighborhood that may by no means be restored.

Rachael Glazer serves because the board president of the Associates of WRR, a company that has collaborated with WRR-FM (101.1) and the town of Dallas to make sure that classical music is a steady a part of the North Texas neighborhood. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning Information.